nVidia hosts developers round-table

Dev teams
get to talk about use of PhysX technology in upcoming titles during
teleconference

When nVidia
acquired AGEIA and the PhysX graphics accelerator, it marked an opportunity for
the video chipset manufacturer to meld two perfect graphical partners into one
seamless entity. Still, it was a matter of convincing developers that using the
PhysX accelerator was worthwhile and could create worlds that were much more
alive.

Ok, that
really wasn’t a hard sell. There are currently eight games on the market that
were built using the PhysX technology and nVidia plans on announcing four more
this week. As part of the program to increase awareness and promote the games
using the technology, nVidia is sponsoring developer chats with the media –
teleconferences that give the dev teams a quick chance to say hello and talk
about their games.

On Friday,
April 24, GRIN and 8monkey Labs hopped on the phone lines to talk about
Terminator: Salvation and Darkest of Days.

Terminator: Salvation

Ulf
Andersson, GRIN founder/director and Niklas Fyrkholm, lead designer, detailed
some of the elements about the next Terminator title to hit the shelves. In
Salvation, players take on the role of John Connor and “the game leads you up to
where to the movie begins. You get to see how John Connor becomes the man he
is.”

Slated for
release the second quarter of this year, Terminator: Salvation keys on the
atmosphere of the fights and the environmental effects and the PhysX technology
played a big role in creating a sense of dread as well as creating believable
environments.

“There will
be realistic interactions within the environment, like interactive debris (trash
and clutter), smoke, fog and steam, destructible environments,” Niklas said.
There will also be “realistic weapon effects.”

While Ulf
admitted that the dev team was having a lot of fun, he also pointed out that “We
had the PhysX stuff working for years now. We did a lot of work with AGEIA way
back. It was used in Bionic Commando and now in Terminator.

“We are
going to keep using the PhysX engine. We will be integrating PhysX into the
engine and using that for future titles.”

With Bionic
Commando and the Terminator title, GRIN has been rather busy, but that’s a good
thing, according to Ulf.

“You really
can’t complain if you are busy in this industry. It’s cool to work with
different things; we like changing it up and trying different things. It’s been
a great experience.”

Ujesh Desai,
of nVidia, pointed out that “the game will launch in May. There will be a GPU-accelerated
PhysX-based fly-through when the game first comes out. But the full
implementation of GPU-accelerated PhysX for the PC won't come out till the first
downloadable content pack."

Darkest
of Days

Darkest of
Days is a first-person shooter slated for release in the third quarter of ’09.
The game revolves around two groups vying for control of history and with the
ability to send agents back into time, players (as the agent) will get to
experience some of the benchmark moments in human history. There are 20 levels
of gameplay with the initial launch, and players will get to use not only
historically based weapons, but futuristic weaponry as well.

“Players
must solve time puzzles, engage with other agents, but then preserve their time,”
the developers said.

As for the
implementation of the PhysX technology, they said it was a “vital part of our
engine, which is proprietary to 8monkey Labs.

“It’s a very
good fit to what we are doing. We used it for battlefield haze, smoke from
muskets, mustard gas from WWI, volcanic ash from Pompeii …”

To
immediately immerse players into the feel and spirit of the game, the player
starts as a member of Custer’s force at Little Big Horn. Other benchmark moments
will include the Civil War and the Eastern Front of a world war.

“The world
is very, very large, but the action will pull the player through,” the dev team
said. “It’s non-linear in the fact that we’ve given players the ability to
choose at certain points in the game where they want to go. It’s non-linear to a
degree, but to complete the game, you have to complete all the levels.

As for the
utilization of the PhysX technology … “We started with PhysX from the ground up.
I was very surprised with how fluid it is so far.”